


Neal by any other name

by nieseryjna



Series: Neal by any other name [1]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-27
Updated: 2011-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-28 06:16:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/304646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nieseryjna/pseuds/nieseryjna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal has many names, and Peter is just to find out how many exactly</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neal by any other name

**Author's Note:**

> It was written as my first white collar fic and first fic in English - and big thanks to my lovely Beta Mam711

 

Neal was bored, which wasn't so surprising as they were reviewing mortgage fraud cases, again. The past two weeks had been spent in the long and painstaking task of reviewing only mortgage cases; they managed to solve a few, and the others were not worth the hassle. Well at least that was Neal's feeling on it. They were close to lunch hour and he was sitting alone in the briefing room finishing reading the papers while Peter went to get his jacket. All the others were already by their desks and in various stages of getting ready to leave. What grabbed his attention was Hughes talking to someone he didn't know. And based on the nice suit it couldn't be FBI, more likely a lawyer, an overpriced one.

He didn't like them, lawyers; that was one of the reasons Mozzie was his lawyer, someone he could trust to really manage his stuff. Not all of it, of course; anyway it came in handy whenever he found himself in trouble.

Peter was ready to leave when he noticed Hughes and the newcomer; his boss made the standard two-finger pointer and called him in.

"Mr. Steichen, this is Agent Peter Burke. Whatever you need to discuss with Caffrey will need to be done with him in the room..."

"Thank you for your cooperation, gentlemen, but as Mr. Caffrey's lawyer I have the right to have a private discussion with my client," Steichen quickly interrupted introductions.

Peter didn't like him from the moment he put his eyes on the man – designer suit, manicured fingers and typical lawyer attitude I-am-always-right. He knitted his brows in confusion: that wasn't right.

"As far as I remember, M ... Mr. Haversham is Neal's lawyer," he stopped himself in time, "and I don't think that changed since yesterday." Now Peter was getting suspicious. What was going on? He didn't think that any of Caffrey's associates would be so bold as to enter the FBI and request to meet the ex-con man, aside from Neal himself. He cast a quick glance to the conference room, confirming that his charge was still busy with paperwork.

"Yes, of course, but it might change after our discussion. Can I please talk with Mr. Caffrey now; it's nothing illegal, I assure you, just some inheritance confirmations." The lawyer was a slimy bastard with a golden tongue, but that was to be expected: all of them were.

Hughes interfered. "Yes, of course, I hope that the Embassy will not forget our deal. Peter, take please Mr. Steichen to the conference room, and stay with him." The message was clear, make no trouble but keep an eye on both lawyer and con man.

Peter just nodded, moving quickly upstairs with the newcomer on his heels. Before he could say anything, the lawyer entered the room and stepped to Neal with outstretched hand, "Hello, Mr. Caffrey, it's a pleasure to finally meet you, I'm Michael Steichen, lawyer to the Nassau family of Luxembourg." He was spitting information as if afraid that if he didn't do it in one breath he would not have any other chance.

Peter was observing Neal – at first he was all smiles and his normal sure self with a twinkle in his eye; after the mentioning of 'lawyer' his curiosity piqued up, to be replaced by surprise in mentioning 'Nassau', to quickly being smothered in confusion. All in a matter of seconds, which if Peter had not observed closely he would not have noticed.

"Hmm, yes … hello, and how can I help you, Mr. Steichen?" Neal was all polite smiles.

"Yes, yes, of course, right to the point, I see. Neal. Can I call you that?" The smile was almost as big as Neal's while running his best cons.

The latter nodded easily, "of course."

"Neal, the point is as lawyer to the Nassau family, I'm also responsible for managing the last will of some of wealthiest Luxembourger families, and before we start I really need to confirm your identity." During the second half of the speech he'd started to pull several things from his briefcase – a folder of documents, an envelope overstuffed with pictures and something that looked surprisingly like a handheld fingerprint reader.

Neal looked offended, but pulled out his wallet and with a smooth move slid his driver's license across the table. Before it could reach the lawyer, it was snapped by Burke with a snort of irritation, "Neal!" The con man didn't even try to look guilty, just flashed his best smile and pulled his CI ID.

He knew well enough that he shouldn't have the license on him – it was a fake, but with the lawyer games he wanted to play his own. It was just that Peter was, as always, a party crasher.

Steichen seemed to be preoccupied with yellowing pages he took from the folder and didn't notice the exchange; raising his head he eyed the agent's hand still clutching the fake id. "That won't be needed, I'm well aware of Neal's … talents … I have other tools and means on hand here."

"There is nothing that I  _allegedly_ can't do," Neal smirked; Peter snorted and sat resigned.

"I can confirm his ID, already did that  _twice_ after his arrests; will that be enough for your purposes?" Burke asked, a little bit irritated with the proceedings.

This time it was the lawyer's turn to look slightly out of the game. "Actually, no, there are only a few things that can't be forged, and Mr. Caffrey's ... Neal's identity confirmation is a little bit more down the road for this than standard FBI procedure." That statement was met with two disbelieving stares, which morphed into a full 'someone-admitted-I'm-genius' smile from Neal, and a 'I-can't-freaking-believe-it' scowl from Peter.

"This documentation is tamper-proof as it was collected when Neal was only 2 months old, so one, he never knew about it; two, if you don't know you can't copy it," was the no-nonsense continuation. "Now please put your ring finger here." He handed the fingertip reader to Neal, and took it right away after the machine started to show the readings. He smiled approvingly, "good, now please allow it to scan your eye - left one, please." Seems the fingerprint reader was an all-in-one scanner. Neal was little bit hesitant this time but complied; the device beeped and blinked green; the smile on the lawyer's face grew even bigger. "Excellent!"

"Mr. Steichen, would you be so kind as to remind me why are we doing it at all?" Neal was all smiles and smooth talking to get the information of what it was about. He had his suspicions, especially when the lawyer mentioned Luxembourg and Nassau in one sentence, but that could be coincidence, right?

"I will explain it in a second; there is one last thing I need to confirm before I can give you details. As I'm sure you understand this is a very delicate situation, and many people would be happy to take your place if they knew about it." The guy simply couldn't be more mysterious if he wanted. Paranoid much? Mozzie would be happy to find a match for his own obsession for security, secrets and codes.

"Now, can we continue– your given name, surname, date and place of birth, Mr. Caffrey, please." There was something in his voice now that gave Neal pause in his normal antics of quick thinking about a con. Luxembourg was a past he would like to have forgotten but there are some things he never could change. He nodded.

"Neal Caffrey, born on the 25th of August, 1982, in San Francisco, California."

"I mean your original, what was the content of your original birth certificate, Mr. Caffrey, not what you changed it to." The lawyer was good, too good.

"What original certificate?" was Peter's surprised question. "Neal!" Beside surprise, this time the question also hid some hurt, as if Neal didn't trust him enough, and that his name was just another alias which he never was able to confirm.

"No! Peter, it's nothing like that. It's not an alias, I swear!" He shot a dirty look towards the lawyer, who at least was decent enough to look guilty for revealing a secret. "I changed my name legally after I turned eighteen."

"Why?"

"That's a revelation for some other day."

Peter just slumped in his chair again, nodding.

"Now can we proceed? Neal?" Steichen prompted.

"Fine, let's play it your way. The date and place is the same, 25th of August, 1982, San Francisco, California. Name is Nathaniel Ernst Albert Leopold McCaffrey. Happy now?" he spat.

The smile he was greeted with was even bigger than his after a million dollar heist, "Ah, ah excellent. Now, here are some documents for you to sign." Another document pack hit the table in front of Neal. "Initials on each page and Hancock on the last, please." Neal didn't even try to get answers this time, just started reading the pages, lots of them.

"So now will you explain what is it about?" Peter didn't have anything else to do but ask.

"Oh, of course, Neal has inherited some money, real estate and a title from Luxembourg; his grandmother died five years ago and from that moment we've been searching for him and his mother. Which wasn't so easy; thanks to you catching him the second time, we got a tip-off from our Interpol contacts about his whereabouts."

"Grandmother? A title? Luxembourg?" Peter's mind was sometimes not on the same page.

"The Wicked Witch... Prince... and why not?" was Neal's fast answer, as he closed the folder and gave it back to the lawyer. "Everything seems to be okay, please continue to manage things in my name and I'll come back to you later."

"Well, actually it's not Prince, it's Comte..." but before he could finish Neal pushed him slightly towards the door, handing him his case with all of his stuff, leaving only the smaller folder and envelope with pictures on the table. "Thank you again, Mr. Steichen."

Neal looked at Peter with narrowed eyes; he seemed in shock – his mouth was opening and closing without uttering a word; he was a perfect imitation of a goldfish.

"Come on, Peter, I'll drive you home and I'll explain everything to you and El." He collected his papers and pulled the older man to his feet. "Peter?" he asked again slightly worried, wishing the man would snap out of shock.

"Sure, let me talk to Hughes, you have lot to explain before I decide whether to throw you back in prison." He left the room quickly, not really looking at Neal again.

They ended up in the Burke's home sharing Chinese take-out and going through the photographs as well as Neal's story.

"So ..." Peter started, "the Grandmother, a Prince and Luxembourg, care to explain how that all passes to... Nathaniel, Ernst, Albert, and Leopold?"

"Well, not exactly," Neal cringed, "but you won't leave me be if I don't. So ... we'll start at the beginning. My grandmother was Princess Marie-Gabriele Adelgonde Wilhelmine Louise of Luxembourg; she bore the titles of Princess of Luxembourg, Princess of Nassau and Countess of Holstein-Ledreborg after her marriage. Quite a mouthful. She got married in 1951 and had six beautiful daughters." He picked one of the photos from the stack.

"But before she married she had a love child out of wedlock – my mother. Nope, no clue who the 'grandpa' was but they say I've got his hair and smile. Anyway the child was given up, you know blue bloods – they can't stand a bastard child. My mom was given up in the States and fast forward thirty years later, she found my father here, Geoffrey McCaffrey, a cop, a married cop. She left him when she found out but it was two years later and she was already pregnant."

"So how did you meet The Witch? Did you even meet her?"

"Ooh yes, I did meet her, and I didn't like her at all, as you can tell. Fast forward, I was five years old when Mom got sick and died. Social services looked into my family to find a next of kin – they were good, I admit, to find that. My father was already dead, killed three years prior and no other family was found. So they put me in foster care for a while, then suddenly a lawyer came by with documents about my mother, her foster situation, etc., and they gave me to him. Well, released into his custody as the family lawyer – he brought me to Europe to meet the rest of the clan. I met her and first thing she does is call me all of my names, all four! Can you imagine, for me it was like the worst thing ever, kids were laughing at me every time someone picked me up. I've got more than two names, and here she came and did that every single time she saw me. Not that that was often. Anyway I got furious and insisted she called me Nate; when she didn't I'd only called her Wicked Witch – that had gone for months when she couldn't stand me anymore and sent me to boarding school for the next ten years." Neal sat on the couch with wine glass in his hand looking totally defeated.

"And what's with the Princess but not Prince thing?"

"Simple, if you are a child of a princess you are called a prince," Neal answered with a grin, "but only if the lovely blue bloods recognize the legitimacy of the marriage, so if not, you are a bastard child. To make things more interesting you are not a prince anymore; you are entitled to a title of comte - and I'm a Comte of Nassau. Almost like a Prince!" he exclaimed.

"Okay, Leo, I think you've had enough, go take the guest room; I'm not sending you to June's today."

"Oh, come on, don't pick on that!"

"Go, Leo, or shall I call you Albert or Ernst?"

"NEAL! It's Neal!"

Peter Burke smiled. Nothing like some fun at the expense of his favorite consultant. He started to pick up pictures that lingered on the table. He would get Neal to tell him the stories behind them; he just had to find enough leverage. His attention was dragged to a photo of 5-year-old Neal in true Prince fashion; it looked like a costume party but the kid was posed like in some old paintings of kings. He rotated the page and smiled even more seeing calligraphic names: Nathaniel Ernst Albert Leopold Christian Alexander Felix Fridrich Robert Eugen Yvain, Comte de Nassau 1987.

 **THE END**

 


End file.
